Director and President of the Sbarro Health Research Organization, College of Science and Technology, Temple University

Welcome to this symposium on Italian lifestyle and health. This is similar to a symposium we had organized in New York. A year ago Bloomberg came out with a study on higher longevity of the italian population and this study was concluded that this increased longevity was due to the italian lifestyle and diet especially in the southern part of Italy, a region which is older than Rome (actually founded by Greeks and Estonians). However this symposium will delve into the components of this healthy Italian lifestyle which contributes to this longevity effect. Some of this work was done in collaboration with Temple University and sponsored by the Italian Consulate General in Philadelphia ( which sponsors programs in this area called Ciao Philadelphia).

Greetings: Fucsia Nissoli Fitzgerald, Deputy elected in the Foreign Circumscription – North and Central America Division

Speaking for the Consulate General is Francesca Cardurani-Meloni. I would like to talk briefly about the Italian cuisine and its evolution, from the influence of the North and South Italy, economic factors, and influence by other cultures. Italian cooking is about simplicity, cooking with what is in season and freshest. The meal is not about the food but about comfort around the table, and comparible to a cullinary heaven, about sharing with family and friends, and bringing the freshest ingredients to the table.

Curation of selected topics and articles on Role of G-Protein Coupled Receptors in Chronic Disease as supplemental information for #TUBiol3373

Curator: Stephen J. Williams, PhD

Below is a series of posts and articles related to the role of G protein coupled receptors (GPCR) in various chronic diseases. This is only a cursory collection and by no means represents the complete extensive literature on pathogenesis related to G protein function or alteration thereof. However it is important to note that, although we think of G protein signaling as rather short lived, quick, their chronic activation may lead to progression of various disease. As to whether disease onset, via GPCR, is a result of sustained signal, loss of desensitization mechanisms, or alterations of transduction systems is an area to be investigated.

Inflammatory and infectious factors are present in diseased airways that interact with G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), such as purinergic receptors and bradykinin (BK) receptors, to stimulate phospholipase C [PLC]. This is followed by the activation of inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3)-dependent activation of IP3 channel receptors in the ER, which results in channel opening and release of stored Ca2+ into the cytoplasm. When ER Ca2+ stores are depleted a pathway for Ca2+ influx across the plasma membrane is activated. This has been referred to as “capacitative Ca2+ entry”, and “store-operated calcium entry” (3). In the next step PLC mediated Ca2+ i is mobilized as a result of GPCR activation by inflammatory mediators, which triggers cytokine production by Ca2+ i-dependent activation of the transcription factor nuclear factor kB (NF-kB) in airway epithelia.

In Alzheimer’s Disease

Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP, Curator discusses findings from a research team at University of California at San Diego (UCSD) which the neuropeptide hormone corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) as having an important role in the etiology of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). CRF activates the CRF receptor (a G stimulatory receptor). It was found inhibition of the CRF receptor prevented cognitive impairment in a mouse model of AD. Furthermore researchers at the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology found the loss of a protein called G protein-coupled receptor 3 (GPR3) may lower the amyloid plaque aggregation, resulting in improved cognitive function. Additionally inhibition of several G-protein coupled receptors alter amyloid precursor processing, providing a further mechanism of the role of GPCR in AD (see references in The role of G protein-coupled receptors in the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease by Amantha Thathiah and Bart De Strooper Nature Reviews Feb 2011; 12: 73-87 and read post).

In Cancer

Further curations and references of G proteins and chronic disease can be found at the Open Access journal https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com using the search terms “GCPR” and “disease” in the Search box in the upper right of the home page.

NIMHD welcomes nine new members to the National Advisory Council on Minority Health and Health Disparities

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) has announced the appointment of nine new members to the National Advisory Council on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NACMHD), NIMHD’s principal advisory board. Members of the council are drawn from the scientific, medical, and lay communities, so they offer diverse perspectives on minority health and health disparities.

The NACMHD, which meets three times a year on the National Institutes of Health campus, Bethesda, Maryland, advises the secretary of Health and Human Services and the directors of NIH and NIMHD on matters related to NIMHD’s mission. The council also conducts the second level of review of grant applications and cooperative agreements for research and training and recommends approval for projects that show promise of making valuable contributions to human knowledge.

The next meeting of the NACMHD will be held on Thursday, Sept. 10, 8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m. on the NIH campus. The meeting will be available on videocast at http://www.videocast.nih.gov.

NIMHD Director Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, M.D., is pleased to welcome the following new members

Margarita Alegría, Ph.D., is the director of the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research at Cambridge Health Alliance and a professor in the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Boston. She has devoted her career to researching disparities in mental health and substance abuse services, with the goal of improving access to and equity and quality of these services for disadvantaged and minority populations.

Maria Araneta, Ph.D., a perinatal epidemiologist, is a professor in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Her research interests include maternal/pediatric HIV/AIDS, birth defects, and ethnic health disparities in type 2 diabetes, regional fat distribution, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic abnormalities.

Judith Bradford, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Population Research in LGBT Health and she co-chairs The Fenway Institute, Boston. Dr. Bradford has participated in health research since 1984, working with public health programs and community-based organizations to conduct studies on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and racial minority communities and to translate the results into programs to reduce health disparities.

Linda Burhansstipanov, Dr.P.H., has worked in public health since 1971, primarily with Native American issues. She is a nationally recognized educator on cancer prevention, community-based participatory research, navigation programs, cultural competency, evaluation, and other topics. Dr. Burhansstipanov worked with the Anschutz Medical Center Cancer Research Center — now the University of Colorado Cancer Research Center — in Denver for five years before founding Native American Cancer Initiatives, Inc., and the Native American Cancer Research Corporation.

Sandro Galea, M.D., a physician and epidemiologist, is the dean and a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. Prior to his appointment at Boston University, Dr. Galea served as the Anna Cheskis Gelman and Murray Charles Gelman Professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York City. His research focuses on the causes of brain disorders, particularly common mood and anxiety disorders, and substance abuse.

Linda Greene, J.D., is Evjue Bascom Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin–Madison Law School. Her teaching and academic scholarship include constitutional law, civil procedure, legislation, civil rights, and sports law. Most recently, she was the vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion at the University of California, San Diego.

Ross A. Hammond, Ph.D., a senior fellow in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., is also director of the Center on Social Dynamics and Policy. His primary area of expertise is using mathematical and computational methods from complex systems science to model complex dynamics in economic, social, and public health systems. His current research topics include obesity etiology and prevention, tobacco control, and behavioral epidemiology.

Hilton Hudson, II, M.D., is chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Franciscan Healthcare, Munster, Indiana and a national ambassador for the American Heart Association. He also is the founder of Hilton Publishing, Inc., a national publisher dedicated to producing content on solutions related to health, wellness, and education for people in underserved communities. Dr. Hilton’s book, “The Heart of the Matter: The African American Guide to Heart Disease, Heart Treatment and Heart Wellness” has impacted at-risk patients nationwide.

Brian M. Rivers, Ph.D., M.P.H., currently serves on the research faculty at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, Florida. He is also an assistant professor in the Department of Oncologic Sciences at the University of South Florida College of Medicine, Tampa. Dr. Rivers’ research efforts include examination of unmet educational and psychosocial needs and the development of communication tools, couple-centered interventions, and evidence-based methods to convey complex information to at-risk populations across the cancer continuum.

NIMHD is one of NIH’s 27 Institutes and Centers. It leads scientific research to improve minority health and eliminate health disparities by conducting and supporting research; planning, reviewing, coordinating, and evaluating all minority health and health disparities research at NIH; promoting and supporting the training of a diverse research workforce; translating and disseminating research information; and fostering collaborations and partnerships. For more information about NIMHD, visit http://www.nimhd.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

Diet and Exercise

Writer and Curator: Larry H. Bernstein, MD, FCAP

Introduction

In the last several decades there has been a transformation in the diet of Americans, and much debate about obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, and the transformation of medical practice to a greater emphasis on preventive medicine. This occurs at a time that the Western countries are experiencing a large portion of the obesity epidemic, which actually diverts attention from a larger share of malnutrition in parts of Africa, Asia, and to a greater extent in India. This does not mean that obesity or malnutrition is exclusively in any parts of the world. But there is a factor at play that involves social factors, poverty, education, cognition, anxiety, and eating behaviors, food preferences and food balance, and activities of daily living. The epidemic of obesity also involves the development of serious long term health problems, such as, type 2 diabetes mellitus, sarcopenia, fracture risk, pulmonary disease, sleep apnea in particular, and cardiovascular and stroke risk. Nevertheless, this generation of Western society is also experiencing a longer life span than its predecessors. In this article I shall explore the published work on diet and exercise.

Older people are more sedentary than other age groups. We sought to determine if providing an accelerometer with feedback about activity and counseling older subjects using Go4Life educational material would increase activity levels. Participants were recruited from independent living areas within assisted living facilities and the general public in the Rochester, MN area. 49 persons aged 65–95(79.5 + 7.0 years) who were ambulatory but sedentary and overweight participated in this randomized controlled crossover trial for one year. After a baseline period of 2 weeks, group 1 received an accelerometer and counseling using Go4Life educational material (www.Go4Life.nia.nih.gov) for 24 weeks and accelerometer alone for the next 24 weeks. Group 2 had no intervention for the ﬁrst 24 weeks and then received an accelerometer and Go4Life based counseling for 24 weeks. There were no signiﬁcant baseline differences between the two groups. The intervention was not associated with a signiﬁcant change inactivity, body weight, % body fat, or blood parameters (p > 0.05). Older (80–93) subjects were less active than younger (65–79) subjects (p = 0.003). Over the course of the 48 week study, an increase in activity level was associated with a decline in % body fat (p = 0.008). Increasing activity levels beneﬁts older patients. However, providing an accelerometer and a Go4Life based exercise counseling program did not result in a 15% improvement in activity levels in this elderly population. Alternate approaches to exercise counseling may be needed in elderly people of this age range.

It is generally recommended that older adults be moderately or vigorously active for 150 min each week. A systematic review demonstrated that only 20–60% of older people are achieving this goal. These studies determined adherence to physical activity recommendations by questionnaire. Using NHANES data, it has been demonstrated that older people meet activity recommendations 62% of the time using a self-report questionnaire compared to 9.6% of the time when measured by accelerometry. Thus, objective measures suggest that older people are falling even more short of the goal than previously thought. Most studies have measured moderate and vigorous activity. However, light activity or NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) also has an important effect on health. For example, increased energy expenditure was associated with lower mortality in community-dwelling older adults. More than half of the extra energy expenditure in the high energy expenditure group came from non-exercise (light) activity. In addition to reduced total mortality, increased light and moderate activity has been associated with better cognitive function, reduced fracture rate (Gregg et al., 1998), less cardiovascular disease, and weight loss in older people. A meta-analysis of middle-aged and older adults has demonstrated greater all-cause mortality with increased sitting time. Thus, any strategy which can increase activity (whether light or more vigorous) has the potential to save lives and improve quality of life for older adults. A variety of devices have been used to measure physical activity.

A tri-axial accelerometer measures movement in three dimensions. Studies comparing tri-axial accelerometers with uniaxial accelerometers and pedometers demonstrate that only certain tri-axial accelerometers provide a reliable assessment of energy expenditure. This is usually due to failure to detect light activity. Since light activity accounts for a substantial portion of older people’s energy expenditure, measuring activity with a questionnaire or measuring steps with a pedometer do not provide an accurate reﬂection of activity in older people.

A recent review concluded that there is only weak evidence that physical activity can be improved. Since increasing both light and moderate activity beneﬁt older people, studies demonstrating that physical activity can be improved are urgently needed. Since accelerometry is the best way to accurately assess light activity, we performed a study to determine if an activity counseling program and using an accelerometer which gives feedback on physical activity, can result in an increase in light and moderate activity in older people. We also sought to determine whether counseling and accelerometer feedback would result in weight loss, change in % body fat, glucose, hemoglobin A1c, insulin, and fasting lipid proﬁle.

The main results of the study are both the experimental and control group lost weight (about 1 kg) at 6months (p = 0.04 and 0.02, respectively). The experimental group was less active at 6 months but not signiﬁcantly while the control group was signiﬁcantly less active at 6 months (p = 0.006) than at baseline. The experimental group had a modest decline in cholesterol (p = 0.03) and an improvement in Get Up & go time (p = 0.03) while the control group had a slight improvement in HgbA1c (p = 0.01). However, the main ﬁnding of the study was that there were no differences between the two groups on any of these variables. Thus, providing this group of older participants with an accelerometer and Go4Life based counseling resulted in no increase in physical activity, weight loss or change in glucose, lipids, blood pressure, or body fat. There were no differences within either group or between groups from 6 to 12 months on any of the variables (data not shown). While age was correlated with baseline activity, it did not affect activity change indicating that younger participants did not respond to the program better than older participants. Performance on the Get Up and Go test and season of the year did not inﬂuence the change in activity. There were no differences in physical activity levels at 3 or 9 months.

There was a signiﬁcant correlation (r = -0.38, p = 0.006) between change in activity and change in body fat over the course of the study. Those subjects (whether in the experimental or control group) who increased their activity over the course of the year were likely to have a decline in % body fat over the year while those whose activity declined were likely to have increased %body fat. There was no correlation between change in activity and any of the other parameters including weight and waist circumference (data not shown).

Older adults are the fastest growing segment of the population in the US, but few meet the minimum recommended 30 min of moderate activity on 5 days or more per week (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2002). Our study found that within the geriatric population, activity declines as people age. We saw a 2.4% decline per year cross-sectionally. This ﬁnding agrees with a recent cohort study (Bachman et al., 2014). In that study, the annual decline accelerated with increasing age. Thus, there is a need to increase activity particularly in the oldest age groups. The United States Preventive Services Task Force concluded that the evidence that counseling improves physical activity is weak (Moyer and US Preventive Services Task Force, 2012). The American Heart Association reached similar conclusions (Artinian et al., 2010). Thus, new ways of counseling older patients to counter the natural decline in activity with age are urgently needed.

Background.There has been a dearth of theorizing in the area of multiple behavior change. The purpose of the current article was to examine how health behavior theory might be applied to the growing research terrain of multiple behavior change. Methods. Three approaches to applying health behavior theory to multiple behavior change are advanced, including searching the literature for potential examples of such applications. Results. These three approaches to multiple behavior change include

(1) a behavior change principles approach;

(2) a global health/behavioral category approach, and

(3) a multiple behavioral approach.

Each approach is discussed and explicated and examples from this emerging literature are provided. Conclusions. Further study in this area has the potential to broaden our understanding of multiple behaviors and multiple behavior change. Implications for additional theory-testing and application of theory to interventions are discussed.

Many of the leading causes of death in the United States are behavior-related and thus preventable. While a number of health behaviors are a concern individually, increasingly the impact of multiple behavioral risks is being appreciated. As newer initiatives funded by the National Institutes of Health and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation begin to stimulate research in this important area, a critical question emerges: How can we understand multiple health behavior change from a theoretical standpoint? While multiple behavior change interventions are beginning to be developed and evaluated, to date there have been few efforts to garner a theory-based understanding of the process of multiple health behavior change. Given that so little theoretical work currently exists in this area, our main purpose is to advance the conversation on how health behavior theory can help us to achieve a greater understanding of multiple behavior change. The approaches discussed have implications for both theory-testing as well as intervention design.

A critical question that must be asked, is whether there is a common set of principles of health behavior change that transcend individual health behaviors. This is an area where much data already exists, as health behavior theories have been tested across numerous health behaviors.The integration of findings from studies across diverse behavioral areas, is not what it could be. Godin and Kok (1996) reviewed studies of the TPB applied to numerous health-related behaviors. Across seven categories of health behaviors, they found TPB components to offer similar prediction of intention but inconsistent prediction of behavior.They concluded that the nature of differing health behaviors may require additional constructs to be added to the TPB, such as actual (versus perceived) behavioral control. Prochaska et al. (1994) examined decisional balance across stages of change for 12 health-related behaviors. Similar patterns were found across nearly all of these health behaviors, with the “pros” of changing generally increasing across the stages, the “cons” decreasing, and a pro/con crossover occurring in the contemplation or preparation stages of change. Prochaska et al. (1994) concluded that clear commonalties exist across these differing health behaviors which were examined in differing samples. Finally, Rosen (2000) examined change processes from the TTM across six behavioral categories, examining whether the trajectory of change processes is similar or different across stages of change in those health areas. He found that for smoking cessation, cognitive change processes were used more in earlier stages of change than behavioral processes, while for physical activity and dietary change, both categories of change processes increased together.

A second approach is the following: Rather than applying theoretical concepts to specific behaviors, such concepts might be applied at the general or global level. A general orientation toward health may not lead directly to specific health behaviors, but it may increase the chances of particular health-related attitudes, which may in turn lead to specific health behaviors. In fact, although Ajzen and Timko (1986) found general health attitudes to be poor predictors of behavior, such attitudes were significantly related to specific health attitudes and perceived behavioral control over specific behaviors. It is likely that when we consider multiple behaviors that we may discover an entire network of health attitudes and beliefs that are interrelated. In fact, studies of single behaviors essentially take those behaviors out of the multi-attitude and multi-behavioral context in which they are embedded. For instance, although attitudes toward walking may be a better predictor of walking behavior than attitudes toward physical activity, walking behavior is part of a larger “physical activity” behavioral category. While predicting that particular behavior may be best served by the specific measure, the larger category is both relevant and of interest. Thus, it may be that there are higher order constructs to be understood here.

A third approach is a multiple behavioral approach, or one which focuses on the linkages among health behaviors. It shares some similarities to the approach just described. Here the focus is more strictly on how particular interventions were superior to comparison groups for 21 of 41 (51%) studies (3 physical activity, 7 diet, 11 weight loss/physical activity and diet). Twenty-four studies had indeterminate results, and in four studies the comparison conditions outperformed eHealth interventions. Conclusions: Published studies of eHealth interventions for physical activity and dietary behavior change are in their infancy. Results indicated mixed ﬁndings related to the effectiveness of eHealth interventions. Interventions that feature interactive technologies need to be reﬁned and more rigorously evaluated to fully determine their potential as tools to facilitate health behavior change.

A prospective evaluation of the Transtheoretical Model of Change applied to exercise in young people

Objectives:To investigate the utility of the Transtheoretical Model of Change in predicting exercise in young people. Design: A prospective study: assessments were done at baseline and follow-up 6 months later. Method: Using stratiﬁed random sampling 1055 Chinese high school pupils living in Hong Kong, 533 of who were followed up at 6 months, completed measures of stage of change (SCQ), self-efﬁcacy (SEQ), perceptions of the pros and cons of exercising (DBQ) and processes of change (PCQ). Data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA, repeated measures ANOVA and independent sample t tests.Results:The utility of the TTM to predict exercise in this population is not strong; increases in self-efﬁcacy and decisional balance discriminated between those remaining active at baseline and follow-up, but not in changing from an inactive (e.g.,Precontemplation or Contemplation) to an active state (e.g.,Maintenance) as one would anticipate given the staging algorithm of the TTM.Conclusion:The TTM is a modest predictor of future stage of change for exercise in young Chinese people. Where there is evidence that TTM variables may shape movement over time, self-efﬁcacy, pros and behavioral processes of change appear to be the strongest predictors

A retrospective study on changes in residents’ physical activities, social interactions, and neighborhood cohesion after moving to a walkable community

Objective. This study is to examine changes in residents’ physical activities, social interactions, andneighbor-hood cohesion after they moved to a walkable community in Austin, Texas.Methods. Retrospective surveys (N=449) were administered in 2013–2014 to collect pre-and post-move data about the outcome variables and relevant personal, social, and physical environmental factors. Walkability of each resident’s pre-move community was measured using the Walk Score. T tests were used to examine the pre–post move differences in the outcomes in the whole sample and across subgroups with different physical activity levels, neighborhood conditions, and neighborhood preferences before the move. Results. After the move, total physical activity increased signiﬁcantly in the whole sample and all subgroups except those who were previously sufﬁciently active; lived in communities with high walkability, social interactions, or neighborhood cohesion; or had moderate preference for walkable neighborhoods. Walking in the community increased in the whole sample and all subgroups except those who were previously sufﬁciently active, moved from high-walkability communities, or had little to no preference for walkable neighborhoods. Social interactions and neighborhood cohesion increased signiﬁcantly after the move in the whole sample and all subgroups.Conclusion.This study explored potential health beneﬁts of a walkable community in promoting physically and socially active lifestyles, especially for populations at higher risk of obesity. The initial result is promising, suggesting the need for more work to further examine the relationships between health and community design using pre–post assessments.

Background: Current research on exercise behavior has largely been attempted to identify the relationship between psychological attributes and the initiation or adherence of exercise behavior based on psychological theories. A limited data are available on the psychological predictors of exercise behavior in public health. Objectives: The present study examined the theorized association of TTM of behavior change constructs by stage of change for exercise behavior. Methods: A total of 228 college students selected from 2 universities in Seoul were surveyed. Four Korean-version questionnaires were used to identify the stage of exercise behavior and psychological attributes of adolescents. Data were analyzed by frequency analysis, MANOVA, correlation analysis, and discriminant function analysis.Results: Multivariate F-test indicated that behavioral and cognitive processes of change, exercise efﬁcacy, and pros differentiated participants across the stages of exercise behavior. Furthermore, exercise behavior was signiﬁcantly correlated with the TTM constructs, and that overall classiﬁcation accuracy across the stages of change was 61.0%. Conclusions:The present study supports the internal and external validity of the Transtheoretical Model for explaining exercise behavior. As this study highlights, dissemination must increase awareness but also inﬂuences perceptions regarding theoretically based and practically important exercise strategies for public health professionals.

Does more education lead to better health habits? Evidence from the school reforms in Australia?

The current study provides new empirical evidence on the causal effect of education on health-related behaviors by exploiting historical changes in the compulsory schooling laws in Australia. Since World War II, Australian states increased the minimum school leaving age from 14 to 15 in different years. Using differences in the laws regarding minimum school leaving age across different cohorts and across different states as a source of exogenous variation in education, we show that more education improves people’s diets and their tendency to engage in more regular exercise and drinking moderately, but not necessarily their tendency to avoid smoking and to engage in more preventive health checks. The improvements in health behaviors are also reﬂected in the estimated positive effect of education on some health outcomes. Our results are robust to alternative measures of education and different estimation methods.

This summary is the last of a series on the impact of transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics on disease investigation, and the sorting and integration of genomic signatures and metabolic signatures to explain phenotypic relationships in variability and individuality of response to disease expression and how this leads to pharmaceutical discovery and personalized medicine. We have unquestionably better tools at our disposal than has ever existed in the history of mankind, and an enormous knowledge-base that has to be accessed. I shall conclude here these discussions with the powerful contribution to and current knowledge pertaining to biochemistry, metabolism, protein-interactions, signaling, and the application of the -OMICS to diseases and drug discovery at this time.

Both the developmental and phylogenetic histories of an organism describe the evolution of physiology—the complex of metabolic pathways that govern the function of an organism as a whole. The necessity of establishing and maintaining homeostatic mechanisms began at the cellular level, with the very first cells, and homeostasis provides the underlying selection pressure fueling evolution.

While the events leading to the formation of the first functioning cell are debatable, a critical one was certainly the formation of simple lipid-enclosed vesicles, which provided a protected space for the evolution of metabolic pathways. Protocells evolved from a common ancestor that experienced environmental stresses early in the history of cellular development, such as acidic ocean conditions and low atmospheric oxygen levels, which shaped the evolution of metabolism.

The reduction of evolution to cell biology may answer the perennially unresolved question of why organisms return to their unicellular origins during the life cycle.

As primitive protocells evolved to form prokaryotes and, much later, eukaryotes, changes to the cell membrane occurred that were critical to the maintenance of chemiosmosis, the generation of bioenergy through the partitioning of ions. The incorporation of cholesterol into the plasma membrane surrounding primitive eukaryotic cells marked the beginning of their differentiation from prokaryotes. Cholesterol imparted more fluidity to eukaryotic cell membranes, enhancing functionality by increasing motility and endocytosis. Membrane deformability also allowed for increased gas exchange.

Acidification of the oceans by atmospheric carbon dioxide generated high intracellular calcium ion concentrations in primitive aquatic eukaryotes, which had to be lowered to prevent toxic effects, namely the aggregation of nucleotides, proteins, and lipids. The early cells achieved this by the evolution of calcium channels composed of cholesterol embedded within the cell’s plasma membrane, and of internal membranes, such as that of the endoplasmic reticulum, peroxisomes, and other cytoplasmic organelles, which hosted intracellular chemiosmosis and helped regulate calcium.

Casting a cellular perspective on evolution highlights the integration of genotype and phenotype. Starting from the protocell membrane, the functional homolog for all complex metazoan organs, it offers a way of experimentally determining the role of genes that fostered evolution based on the ontogeny and phylogeny of cellular processes that can be traced back, in some cases, to our last universal common ancestor. ….

Casting a cellular perspective on evolution highlights the integration of genotype and phenotype. Starting from the protocell membrane, the functional homolog for all complex metazoan organs, it offers a way of experimentally determining the role of genes that fostered evolution based on the ontogeny and phylogeny of cellular processes that can be traced back, in some cases, to our last universal common ancestor.

Given that the unicellular toolkit is complete with all the traits necessary for forming multicellular organisms (Science, 301:361-63, 2003), it is distinctly possible that metazoans are merely permutations of the unicellular body plan. That scenario would clarify a lot of puzzling biology: molecular commonalities between the skin, lung, gut, and brain that affect physiology and pathophysiology exist because the cell membranes of unicellular organisms perform the equivalents of these tissue functions, and the existence of pleiotropy—one gene affecting many phenotypes—may be a consequence of the common unicellular source for all complex biologic traits. …

The cell-molecular homeostatic model for evolution and stability addresses how the external environment generates homeostasis developmentally at the cellular level. It also determines homeostatic set points in adaptation to the environment through specific effectors, such as growth factors and their receptors, second messengers, inflammatory mediators, crossover mutations, and gene duplications. This is a highly mechanistic, heritable, plastic process that lends itself to understanding evolution at the cellular, tissue, organ, system, and population levels, mediated by physiologically linked mechanisms throughout, without having to invoke random, chance mechanisms to bridge different scales of evolutionary change. In other words, it is an integrated mechanism that can often be traced all the way back to its unicellular origins.

The switch from swim bladder to lung as vertebrates moved from water to land is proof of principle that stress-induced evolution in metazoans can be understood from changes at the cellular level.

A MECHANISTIC BASIS FOR LUNG DEVELOPMENT: Stress from periodic atmospheric hypoxia (1) during vertebrate adaptation to land enhances positive selection of the stretch-regulated parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP) in the pituitary and adrenal glands. In the pituitary (2), PTHrP signaling upregulates the release of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) (3), which stimulates the release of glucocorticoids (GC) by the adrenal gland (4). In the adrenal gland, PTHrP signaling also stimulates glucocorticoid production of adrenaline (5), which in turn affects the secretion of lung surfactant, the distension of alveoli, and the perfusion of alveolar capillaries (6). PTHrP signaling integrates the inflation and deflation of the alveoli with surfactant production and capillary perfusion. THE SCIENTIST STAFF

From a cell-cell signaling perspective, two critical duplications in genes coding for cell-surface receptors occurred during this period of water-to-land transition—in the stretch-regulated parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP) receptor gene and the β adrenergic (βA) receptor gene. These gene duplications can be disassembled by following their effects on vertebrate physiology backwards over phylogeny. PTHrP signaling is necessary for traits specifically relevant to land adaptation: calcification of bone, skin barrier formation, and the inflation and distention of lung alveoli. Microvascular shear stress in PTHrP-expressing organs such as bone, skin, kidney, and lung would have favored duplication of the PTHrP receptor, since sheer stress generates radical oxygen species (ROS) known to have this effect and PTHrP is a potent vasodilator, acting as an epistatic balancing selection for this constraint.

Positive selection for PTHrP signaling also evolved in the pituitary and adrenal cortex (see figure on this page), stimulating the secretion of ACTH and corticoids, respectively, in response to the stress of land adaptation. This cascade amplified adrenaline production by the adrenal medulla, since corticoids passing through it enzymatically stimulate adrenaline synthesis. Positive selection for this functional trait may have resulted from hypoxic stress that arose during global episodes of atmospheric hypoxia over geologic time. Since hypoxia is the most potent physiologic stressor, such transient oxygen deficiencies would have been acutely alleviated by increasing adrenaline levels, which would have stimulated alveolar surfactant production, increasing gas exchange by facilitating the distension of the alveoli. Over time, increased alveolar distension would have generated more alveoli by stimulating PTHrP secretion, impelling evolution of the alveolar bed of the lung.

This scenario similarly explains βA receptor gene duplication, since increased density of the βA receptor within the alveolar walls was necessary for relieving another constraint during the evolution of the lung in adaptation to land: the bottleneck created by the existence of a common mechanism for blood pressure control in both the lung alveoli and the systemic blood pressure. The pulmonary vasculature was constrained by its ability to withstand the swings in pressure caused by the systemic perfusion necessary to sustain all the other vital organs. PTHrP is a potent vasodilator, subserving the blood pressure constraint, but eventually the βA receptors evolved to coordinate blood pressure in both the lung and the periphery.

Gut Microbiome Heritability

Analyzing data from a large twin study, researchers have homed in on how host genetics can shape the gut microbiome.
By Tracy Vence | The Scientist Nov 6, 2014

Previous research suggested host genetic variation can influence microbial phenotype, but an analysis of data from a large twin study published in Cell today (November 6) solidifies the connection between human genotype and the composition of the gut microbiome. Studying more than 1,000 fecal samples from 416 monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs, Cornell University’s Ruth Ley and her colleagues have homed in on one bacterial taxon, the family Christensenellaceae, as the most highly heritable group of microbes in the human gut. The researchers also found that Christensenellaceae—which was first described just two years ago—is central to a network of co-occurring heritable microbes that is associated with lean body mass index (BMI). …

Of particular interest was the family Christensenellaceae, which was the most heritable taxon among those identified in the team’s analysis of fecal samples obtained from the TwinsUK study population.

While microbiologists had previously detected 16S rRNA sequences belonging to Christensenellaceae in the human microbiome, the family wasn’t named until 2012. “People hadn’t looked into it, partly because it didn’t have a name . . . it sort of flew under the radar,” said Ley.

Ley and her colleagues discovered that Christensenellaceae appears to be the hub in a network of co-occurring heritable taxa, which—among TwinsUK participants—was associated with low BMI. The researchers also found that Christensenellaceae had been found at greater abundance in low-BMI twins in older studies.

To interrogate the effects of Christensenellaceae on host metabolic phenotype, the Ley’s team introduced lean and obese human fecal samples into germ-free mice. They found animals that received lean fecal samples containing more Christensenellaceae showed reduced weight gain compared with their counterparts. And treatment of mice that had obesity-associated microbiomes with one member of the Christensenellaceae family, Christensenella minuta, led to reduced weight gain. …

Ley and her colleagues are now focusing on the host alleles underlying the heritability of the gut microbiome. “We’re running a genome-wide association analysis to try to find genes—particular variants of genes—that might associate with higher levels of these highly heritable microbiota. . . . Hopefully that will point us to possible reasons they’re heritable,” she said. “The genes will guide us toward understanding how these relationships are maintained between host genotype and microbiome composition.”

The desire for temporal and spatial control of medications to minimize side effects and maximize benefits has inspired the development of light-controllable drugs, or optopharmacology. Early versions of such drugs have manipulated ion channels or protein-protein interactions, “but never, to my knowledge, G protein–coupled receptors [GPCRs], which are one of the most important pharmacological targets,” says Pau Gorostiza of the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, in Barcelona.

Gorostiza has taken the first step toward filling that gap, creating a photosensitive inhibitor of the metabotropic glutamate 5 (mGlu5) receptor—a GPCR expressed in neurons and implicated in a number of neurological and psychiatric disorders. The new mGlu5 inhibitor—called alloswitch-1—is based on a known mGlu receptor inhibitor, but the simple addition of a light-responsive appendage, as had been done for other photosensitive drugs, wasn’t an option. The binding site on mGlu5 is “extremely tight,” explains Gorostiza, and would not accommodate a differently shaped molecule. Instead, alloswitch-1 has an intrinsic light-responsive element.

In a human cell line, the drug was active under dim light conditions, switched off by exposure to violet light, and switched back on by green light. When Gorostiza’s team administered alloswitch-1 to tadpoles, switching between violet and green light made the animals stop and start swimming, respectively.

The fact that alloswitch-1 is constitutively active and switched off by light is not ideal, says Gorostiza. “If you are thinking of therapy, then in principle you would prefer the opposite,” an “on” switch. Indeed, tweaks are required before alloswitch-1 could be a useful drug or research tool, says Stefan Herlitze, who studies ion channels at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany. But, he adds, “as a proof of principle it is great.” (Nat Chem Biol, http://dx.doi.org:/10.1038/nchembio.1612, 2014)

To understand disease processes, scientists often focus on unraveling how gene expression in disease-associated cells is altered. Increases or decreases in transcription—as dictated by a regulatory stretch of DNA called an enhancer, which serves as a binding site for transcription factors and associated proteins—can produce an aberrant composition of proteins, metabolites, and signaling molecules that drives pathologic states. Identifying the root causes of these changes may lead to new therapeutic approaches for many different diseases.

Although few therapies for human diseases aim to alter gene expression, the outstanding examples—including antiestrogens for hormone-positive breast cancer, antiandrogens for prostate cancer, and PPAR-γ agonists for type 2 diabetes—demonstrate the benefits that can be achieved through targeting gene-control mechanisms. Now, thanks to recent papers from laboratories at MIT, Harvard, and the National Institutes of Health, researchers have a new, much bigger transcriptional target: large DNA regions known as super-enhancers or stretch-enhancers. Already, work on super-enhancers is providing insights into how gene-expression programs are established and maintained, and how they may go awry in disease. Such research promises to open new avenues for discovering medicines for diseases where novel approaches are sorely needed.

Super-enhancers cover stretches of DNA that are 10- to 100-fold longer and about 10-fold less abundant in the genome than typical enhancer regions (Cell, 153:307-19, 2013). They also appear to bind a large percentage of the transcriptional machinery compared to typical enhancers, allowing them to better establish and enforce cell-type specific transcriptional programs (Cell, 153:320-34, 2013).

Super-enhancers are closely associated with genes that dictate cell identity, including those for cell-type–specific master regulatory transcription factors. This observation led to the intriguing hypothesis that cells with a pathologic identity, such as cancer cells, have an altered gene expression program driven by the loss, gain, or altered function of super-enhancers.

Sure enough, by mapping the genome-wide location of super-enhancers in several cancer cell lines and from patients’ tumor cells, we and others have demonstrated that genes located near super-enhancers are involved in processes that underlie tumorigenesis, such as cell proliferation, signaling, and apoptosis.

Super-enhancers cover stretches of DNA that are 10- to 100-fold longer and about 10-fold less abundant in the genome than typical enhancer regions.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have found that disease- and trait-associated genetic variants often occur in greater numbers in super-enhancers (compared to typical enhancers) in cell types involved in the disease or trait of interest (Cell, 155:934-47, 2013). For example, an enrichment of fasting glucose–associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) was found in the stretch-enhancers of pancreatic islet cells (PNAS, 110:17921-26, 2013). Given that some 90 percent of reported disease-associated SNPs are located in noncoding regions, super-enhancer maps may be extremely valuable in assigning functional significance to GWAS variants and identifying target pathways.

Because only 1 to 2 percent of active genes are physically linked to a super-enhancer, mapping the locations of super-enhancers can be used to pinpoint the small number of genes that may drive the biology of that cell. Differential super-enhancer maps that compare normal cells to diseased cells can be used to unravel the gene-control circuitry and identify new molecular targets, in much the same way that somatic mutations in tumor cells can point to oncogenic drivers in cancer. This approach is especially attractive in diseases for which an incomplete understanding of the pathogenic mechanisms has been a barrier to discovering effective new therapies.

Another therapeutic approach could be to disrupt the formation or function of super-enhancers by interfering with their associated protein components. This strategy could make it possible to downregulate multiple disease-associated genes through a single molecular intervention. A group of Boston-area researchers recently published support for this concept when they described inhibited expression of cancer-specific genes, leading to a decrease in cancer cell growth, by using a small molecule inhibitor to knock down a super-enhancer component called BRD4 (Cancer Cell, 24:777-90, 2013). More recently, another group showed that expression of the RUNX1 transcription factor, involved in a form of T-cell leukemia, can be diminished by treating cells with an inhibitor of a transcriptional kinase that is present at the RUNX1 super-enhancer (Nature, 511:616-20, 2014).

Previous studies have shown that many people with schizophrenia have de novo, or new, genetic mutations. These misspellings in a gene’s DNA sequence

occur spontaneously and so aren’t shared by their close relatives.

Dr. Mary-Claire King of the University of Washington in Seattle and colleagues set out to

identify spontaneous genetic mutations in people with schizophrenia and

to assess where and when in the brain these misspelled genes are turned on, or expressed.

The study was funded in part by NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The results were published in the August 1, 2013, issue of Cell.

The researchers sequenced the exomes (protein-coding DNA regions) of 399 people—105 with schizophrenia plus their unaffected parents and siblings. Gene variations
that were found in a person with schizophrenia but not in either parent were considered spontaneous.

The likelihood of having a spontaneous mutation was associated with

the age of the father in both affected and unaffected siblings.

Significantly more mutations were found in people

whose fathers were 33-45 years at the time of conception compared to 19-28 years.

Among people with schizophrenia, the scientists identified

54 genes with spontaneous mutations

predicted to cause damage to the function of the protein they encode.

The researchers used newly available database resources that show

where in the brain and when during development genes are expressed.

The genes form an interconnected expression network with many more connections than

that of the genes with spontaneous damaging mutations in unaffected siblings.

The spontaneously mutated genes in people with schizophrenia

were expressed in the prefrontal cortex, a region in the front of the brain.

The genes are known to be involved in important pathways in brain development. Fifty of these genes were active

mainly during the period of fetal development.

“Processes critical for the brain’s development can be revealed by the mutations that disrupt them,” King says. “Mutations can lead to loss of integrity of a whole pathway,
not just of a single gene.”

These findings support the concept that schizophrenia may result, in part, from

disruptions in development in the prefrontal cortex during fetal development.

James E. Darnell’s “Reflections”

A brief history of the discovery of RNA and its role in transcription — peppered with career advice
By Joseph P. Tiano

James Darnell begins his Journal of Biological Chemistry “Reflections” article by saying, “graduate students these days

have to swim in a sea virtually turgid with the daily avalanche of new information and

may be momentarily too overwhelmed to listen to the aging.

I firmly believe how we learned what we know can provide useful guidance for how and what a newcomer will learn.” Considering his remarkable discoveries in

RNA processing and eukaryotic transcriptional regulation

spanning 60 years of research, Darnell’s advice should be cherished. In his second year at medical school at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, while
studying streptococcal disease in Robert J. Glaser’s laboratory, Darnell realized he “loved doing the experiments” and had his first “career advancement event.”
He and technician Barbara Pesch discovered that in vivo penicillin treatment killed streptococci only in the exponential growth phase and not in the stationary phase. These
results were published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation and earned Darnell an interview with Harry Eagle at the National Institutes of Health.

Darnell arrived at the NIH in 1956, shortly after Eagle shifted his research interest to developing his minimal essential cell culture medium, still used. Eagle, then studying cell metabolism, suggested that Darnell take up a side project on poliovirus replication in mammalian cells in collaboration with Robert I. DeMars. DeMars’ Ph.D.
adviser was also James Watson’s mentor, so Darnell met Watson, who invited him to give a talk at Harvard University, which led to an assistant professor position
at the MIT under Salvador Luria. A take-home message is to embrace side projects, because you never know where they may lead: this project helped to shape
his career.

Darnell arrived in Boston in 1961. Following the discovery of DNA’s structure in 1953, the world of molecular biology was turning to RNA in an effort to understand how
proteins are made. Darnell’s background in virology (it was discovered in 1960 that viruses used RNA to replicate) was ideal for the aim of his first independent lab:
exploring mRNA in animal cells grown in culture. While at MIT, he developed a new technique for purifying RNA along with making other observations

suggesting that nonribosomal cytoplasmic RNA may be involved in protein synthesis.

When Darnell moved to Albert Einstein College of Medicine for full professorship in 1964, it was hypothesized that heterogenous nuclear RNA was a precursor to mRNA.
At Einstein, Darnell discovered RNA processing of pre-tRNAs and demonstrated for the first time

that a specific nuclear RNA could represent a possible specific mRNA precursor.

In 1967 Darnell took a position at Columbia University, and it was there that he discovered (simultaneously with two other labs) that

mRNA contained a polyadenosine tail.

The three groups all published their results together in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 1971. Shortly afterward, Darnell made his final career move
four short miles down the street to Rockefeller University in 1974.

Over the next 35-plus years at Rockefeller, Darnell never strayed from his original research question: How do mammalian cells make and control the making of different
mRNAs? His work was instrumental in the collaborative discovery of

splicing in the late 1970s and

in identifying and cloning many transcriptional activators.

Perhaps his greatest contribution during this time, with the help of Ernest Knight, was

the discovery and cloning of the signal transducers and activators of transcription (STAT) proteins.

And with George Stark, Andy Wilks and John Krowlewski, he described

cytokine signaling via the JAK-STAT pathway.

Darnell closes his “Reflections” with perhaps his best advice: Do not get too wrapped up in your own work, because “we are all needed and we are all in this together.”

GxGD proteases are a family of intramembranous enzymes capable of hydrolyzing

the transmembrane domain of some integral membrane proteins.

The GxGD family is one of the three families of

intramembrane-cleaving proteases discovered so far (along with the rhomboid and site-2 protease) and

includes the γ-secretase and the signal peptide peptidase.

Although only recently discovered, a number of functions in human pathology and in numerous other biological processes

have been attributed to γ-secretase and SPP.

Taisuke Tomita and Takeshi Iwatsubo of the University of Tokyo highlighted the latest findings on the structure and function of γ-secretase and SPP
in a recent minireview in The Journal of Biological Chemistry.

the main component of senile plaques in Alzheimer’s disease patients’ brains. The complete structure of mammalian γ-secretase is not yet known; however,
Tomita and Iwatsubo note that biochemical analyses have revealed it to be a multisubunit protein complex.

Its catalytic subunit is presenilin, an aspartyl protease.

In vitro and in vivo functional and chemical biology analyses have revealed that

presenilin is a modulator and mandatory component of the γ-secretase–mediated cleavage of APP.

Genetic studies have identified three other components required for γ-secretase activity:

nicastrin,

anterior pharynx defective 1 and

presenilin enhancer 2.

By coexpression of presenilin with the other three components, the authors managed to

reconstitute γ-secretase activity.

Tomita and Iwatsubo determined using the substituted cysteine accessibility method and by topological analyses, that

the catalytic aspartates are located at the center of the nine transmembrane domains of presenilin,

by revealing the exact location of the enzyme’s catalytic site.

The minireview also describes in detail the formerly enigmatic mechanism of γ-secretase mediated cleavage.

SPP, an enzyme that cleaves remnant signal peptides in the membrane

during the biogenesis of membrane proteins and

signal peptides from major histocompatibility complex type I,

also is involved in the maturation of proteins of the hepatitis C virus and GB virus B.

Bioinformatics methods have revealed in fruit flies and mammals four SPP-like proteins,

two of which are involved in immunological processes.

By using γ-secretase inhibitors and modulators, it has been confirmed

that SPP shares a similar GxGD active site and proteolytic activity with γ-secretase.

Upon purification of the human SPP protein with the baculovirus/Sf9 cell system,

HLAs preferentially bind conserved regions of viral proteins, a concept we term “targeting efficiency,” and that

this preference may provide improved clearance of infection in several viral systems.

To test this hypothesis, T-cell responses to A/H1N1 (2009) were measured from peripheral blood mononuclear cells obtained from a household cohort study
performed during the 2009–2010 influenza season. We found that HLA targeting efficiency scores significantly correlated with

A further population-based analysis found that the carriage frequencies of the alleles with the lowest targeting efficiencies, A*24,

were associated with pH1N1 mortality (r = 0.37, P = 0.031) and

are common in certain indigenous populations in which increased pH1N1 morbidity has been reported.

HLA efficiency scores and HLA use are associated with CD8 T-cell magnitude in humans after influenza infection.
The computational tools used in this study may be useful predictors of potential morbidity and

identify immunologic differences of new variant influenza strains

more accurately than evolutionary sequence comparisons.

Population-based studies of the relative frequency of these alleles in severe vs. mild influenza cases

The change in drug discovery strategy from ‘classical’ function-first approaches (in which the assay of drug function was at the tissue or organism level),
with mechanistic studies potentially coming later, to more-recent target-based approaches where initial assays usually involve assessing the interactions
of drugs with specified (and often cloned, recombinant) proteins in vitro. In the latter cases, effects in vivo are assessed later, with concomitantly high levels of attrition.

Arguably the two chief hallmarks of the systems biology approach are:

(i) that we seek to make mathematical models of our systems iteratively or in parallel with well-designed ‘wet’ experiments, and
(ii) that we do not necessarily start with a hypothesis but measure as many things as possible (the ’omes) and

let the data tell us the hypothesis that best fits and describes them.

Although metabolism was once seen as something of a Cinderella subject,

there are fundamental reasons to do with the organisation of biochemical networks as

to why the metabol(om)ic level – now in fact seen as the ‘apogee’ of the ’omics trilogy –

is indeed likely to be far more discriminating than are

changes in the transcriptome or proteome.

The next two subsections deal with these points and Fig. 2 summarises the paper in the form of a Mind Map.

Despite the advent of new drug classes, the global epidemic of cardiometabolic disease has not abated. Continuing

unmet medical needs remain a major driver for new research.

Drug discovery approaches in this field have mirrored industry trends, leading to a recent

increase in the number of molecules entering development.

However, worrisome trends and newer hurdles are also apparent. The history of two newer drug classes—

glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists and

dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors—

illustrates both progress and challenges. Future success requires that researchers learn from these experiences and

continue to explore and apply new technology platforms and research paradigms.

The global epidemic of obesity and diabetes continues to progress relentlessly. The International Diabetes Federation predicts an even greater diabetes burden (>430 million people afflicted) by 2030, which will disproportionately affect developing nations (International Diabetes Federation, 2011). Yet

Therefore, clinicians must often use combination therapy, adding additional agents over time. Ultimately many patients will need to use insulin—a therapeutic class first introduced in 1922. Most existing agents also have

issues around safety and tolerability as well as dosing convenience (which can impact patient compliance).

Pharmacometabolomics, also known as pharmacometabonomics, is a field which stems from metabolomics,